Free to Stay is Smoosh's second record. Jason McGerr from Death Cab for Cutie is their drum teacher and a bit of a mentor. McGerr met Smoosh in the year 2000 while working for a music store selling drums three days a week. In the case of Smoosh, their father had stopped in to have his violin restrung. When the family heard the drums rumbling upstairs they headed up to check it out.

“I found the girls and the rest of their family huddled around a small red drum kit where Chloe was declaring her infatuation with the instrument, followed by the common parental response, “You’ll have to practice and get lessons if you really want a drum set” said McGerr. “After greeting them and answering all their questions, I leveraged the deal using my second job as a teacher Seattle Drum School to get them started. If they agreed to buy the drums, I would donate my time.”

The day of Chloe’s first lesson Asya showed up as well, and her parents asked if McGerr would consider including her. He said yes, and what could have been a few introductory lessons turned in to a four year study at the Drum School. Asya sat down in front a piano one day and began playing while singing quietly to herself, and it caught his ear. Their duets became Chloe on the drums while Asya sang and played keyboards. McGerr would listen to them at the beginning of a lesson and encourage the best ideas, and they would then arrange and rehearse those ideas until they became songs. Soon they were going home with burned CDs of what had been documented earlier in their lessons. The rest, as they say, is history.